“Sorry, Rogue. If we had a flashlight or something, then—,” Gabriel began but was cut off.
“Trust me; you don’t wanna see what’s in here.” Rogue scanned the room with his eyes. He could feel several life-forms moving around him but wasn’t sure which was the one he had come in search of. “Father Time!” Rogue called out. The wind picked up, scattering trash in the darkness. There was the loud rattling of chains followed by a ghostly wailing.
“I don’t like this, Rogue,” Gabriel told him. There was a light rush of wind and what sounded like metal grinding against metal. The Nimrod empowered him, but the trident didn’t manifest. Something within the building made the relic uneasy, and it conveyed this to Gabriel.
Rogue felt the pinpricks of power coming from Gabriel. When Rogue looked at Gabriel he noticed the faint glow that had come over him. “Gabriel, I need you to stay calm. Father Time is a bit of a recluse and I really don’t wanna spook him.”
“Spook him? That’s a riot.” Gabriel jumped as something scampered across his face. A low howling seemed to come from everywhere at once and something that felt like burlap brushed across his face. Of his own accord his hands began to flare with power.
“Gabriel, I need you to relax.” Rogue touched his arm and got a painful shock. Gabriel’s body began to burn so bright that Rogue had to turn away. “Father Time, if I were you I’d cut the shit before this gets too far gone.” He whipped his head back and forth, but all he could see was the darkness moving. From the way lightning was shooting from Gabriel he knew he had to do something. “Fuck this.” Rogue pulled the revolver from the right holster. He took his time, anticipating where the darkness would shift next, and fired two shots. There was a thump of something hitting the ground and suddenly the wind and howling stopped. “It’s okay, kid,” he told Gabriel while re-holstering his gun.
Gabriel tried his best to calm down to keep the magic raging in him from going wild. The feeling was akin to having a great gas bubble in his stomach that refused to pass. He was able to bring about some measure of control, but the Nimrod was still agitated. Gabriel watched as Rogue pulled something from his pocket and tossed it into the air. He shouted something and the room was suddenly illuminated. Gabriel took one look at his surroundings and wished it was dark again.
The floor was littered with the corpses of rats, cats, dogs, and birds. There was even the half-mummified body of what looked like a pig lying at the bottom of the stairs. A grunt of pain brought Gabriel’s eyes to the center of a room, where Rogue was attending to what was in the shape of a man, but he looked anything but human.
“Damn you, mage!” the vampire known as Father Time cursed Rogue while attending to the hole in his shoulder. Pinkish pus oozed from the hole and down his worn topcoat.
“I asked you to stop, but you wouldn’t listen. Now shut up and let me see that shoulder.” Rogue knelt beside him and examined the hole. Most vampires would’ve
recovered from such a wound in a matter of minutes or less, especially one as old as Father Time, but those were vampires who were well fed. Rogue could tell by the animal corpses and Father Time’s withered body that it had been a while since he’d fed properly.
“Get away from me; I can heal the wound myself.” Father Time swatted at Rogue with his good arm, which looked like it didn’t have the strength to rise on its own, let alone do any real damage.
“Not if you keep starving yourself like this.” Rogue pressed his hand against the wound and whispered the words. When he removed his hand the wound had closed. “When is the last time you’ve had something that was capable of speech?” Rogue motioned towards the carcasses littering the ground.
“I will not drink of the sheep. My thirst keeps me focused while I wait for the end of us to come to pass,” Father Time said wearily.
“You’d better get it in your mind to drink from something or you ain’t gonna be around to see it, buddy.”
“Is that a vampire?” Gabriel stood over them and studied Father Time curiously. He’d always thought of vampires as beautiful and magical, but the man lying on the ground before him looked like something out of a horror movie. The man was little more than a corpse with a dirty nest of white hair covering his face and head. His withered lips were drawn back into a sneer, showing yellow fangs jutting from rotted gums. Bloodred eyes stared up at Gabriel maliciously from their sunken sockets.
“He used to be, before he went nuts,” Rogue said, wiping his hands on his jeans.
“It is you who are insane, mage. For even with your demon’s eyes you do not see the writing on the wall. The descendant of Usiri and his mistress walks the earth in search of his place at the table.”
“What’s he talking about?” Gabriel asked.
“Father Time here thinks that some supervamp is gonna come through and wipe out the vampire race. It’s a far-fetched story, but it’s kept him hiding and living off the blood of animals for the last few years.”
“Your story is my truth, mage. When the greatest mistake of us draws first blood he shall be filled with our knowledge, strength, and all-consuming thirst. The thirst will burn his insides and drive him to the point of madness and the blood of one hundred sheep shall not sate him, for he hungers for the blood of the wolf. What was done will be undone.”
“And the cow jumped over the moon.” Rogue waved him silent. “Listen: while you’re in here waiting to be eaten I need a favor from you.”
“As it always is with your lot. I’ve no desire to barter with you tonight, mage. Take your hellish eyes and this befouled boy and leave this place before you bring the agents of hell to my doorstep,” Father Time snarled.
“So you know there’s something wrong with the boy?” Rogue asked.
Father Time looked over Gabriel slowly. “All who can see will know what this boy is. A mortal who walks with the power of a god is not an easy thing to miss.”
“I need you to tell me what’s going on with him, Father Time,” Rogue said.
“What is to pass will pass. There’s nothing that you or the boy can do about it.” Father Time grabbed a passing rat and tore into it. In a matter of seconds he’d drained the rat and discarded it amongst the others.
“I need to tell exactly what it is that’s supposed to go down,” Rogue told him.
For a minute Father Time looked almost sane. “Rogue, to get involved in this will draw attention that I don’t want or need right now. Already you’ve tainted my lair by
bringing him here. If you’ve ever valued our strange friendship you’ll take him away from here and trouble me no more with this.”
“Father Time, I know you value your privacy and I’d have never come to you if I felt I had another choice, but you’re our best bet at solving this riddle. This boy can mean life or death for all humanity, including the vampires. I need you, Father Time, most gifted of the Seers,” Rogue pleaded.
Hearing the name of his vampire coven struck a chord in Father Time. Since the vision he’d seen during the last war of the vampire covens, he’d been in hiding, waiting for the end as he had seen it. But it hadn’t always been like that for Father Time. He was once a proud warrior and powerful psychic.
Father Time looked at Rogue. “After I do this thing for you, our business is concluded.”
“I understand.” Rogue nodded. “Gabriel, give him your hands.”
Gabriel looked hesitant, but when Rogue assured him that it was safe he stepped forward and extended his hands. Father Time skittered back so fast that he crashed into a pile of rubble, sending a dust cloud up.
“No, no. I dare not touch this one directly. Something personal to him will work just fine,” Father Time explained.
Gabriel was patting himself in search of something to give the strange vampire when his fingers brushed against his necklace. It was a simple wooden fang at the end of a leather cord, but it was one of his most prized possessions. It had been his father’s when he was a boy and Redfeather had passed it on to Gabriel when he came to stay with him. Gabriel took the necklace off and placed it into Father Time’s withered hand.
Rogue and Gabriel watched the vampire as he crouched
over the carving and studied it like a child would an insect trapped under a glass. He rolled the carving back and forth on the ground, muttering to himself and scratching at whatever had made a nest in his beard. Rogue was beginning to wonder if Father Time was even seeing anything when the vampire suddenly went stiff. Father Time’s eyes went wild and he began to shout.
“You foolhardy boy, what have you brought into the world?” Father Time moved so fast that Rogue didn’t even realize the vampire had gotten off the floor until he bumped past him to get to Gabriel. The two went crashing to the ground, with Father Time landing on top of the struggling Gabriel. “You’ve damned us all!” Father Time rained spittle on Gabriel.
Rogue grabbed the vampire roughly by the collar and slung him across the room. “You really must’ve taken leave of your senses to attack someone who is under my protection.” Rogue pulled both revolvers and placed them to Father Time’s eyes. “I know your eyes would eventually regenerate, but it might be kinda fun watching you try to catch rats blind.” He pulled the hammers back with his thumbs.
“Do what you will, Rogue. The boy has already ensured that we will all burn in the flame for what he has awakened. Tonight I heard the screams of God’s faithful as the walls of their mighty house shook under steel and magic. The blood of the Hunter is the prize and the servants of the underworld are quite thirsty,” Father Time told them.
“You’d better start making some sense, Father Time.” Rogue pushed the barrels into Father Time’s eyes, causing them to tear. Trails of crimson rolled down his face and dotted his beard.
“Use your eyes, Rogue, and see him for who he really is.” Father Time pointed a gnarled finger at Gabriel. “The
boy is twice damned for falling into the favor of the Nimrod and its one true master. Through him, the Bishop will have his revenge and all humanity is expendable.”
“How do we stop the Bishop?” Rogue put his guns away.
“You can’t. Even now I look at him and see the Bishop’s mocking sneer. The end is coming and it is he who will bring it about.” Father Time’s head suddenly whipped up. “Even now darkness swallows the moon.”
Rogue thought that the statement was another one of Father Time’s riddles until he looked out one of the boarded windows and realized that he couldn’t see the moon. Not only had the moon vanished, but so had the sky and everything else outside. The entire building was wrapped in darkness. “Talk about fucking persistence.” Rogue whipped his revolvers back and forth, looking for a target.
When they pulled off the FDR it started drizzling, blanketing the ground in a light mist. The Hummer rumbled through the quiet streets, with the occupants of the car equally as quiet. De Mona sat in the second row with Jackson, pondering all that had happened that night. Ever since the trident had come into her life people had been dying: her father, Akbar, Angelo, and possibly Gabriel. She felt bad that she’d brought the thing to him instead of just burying it in the deepest hole she could dig. It wouldn’t have brought her father back, but it might’ve saved the lives of those people. De Mona vowed that she would do whatever it took to help them find the trident and then she would see it destroyed.
Redfeather sat alone in the third row, peering at Finnious and the body of Brother Angelo. The High Brother looked more like a mummified corpse than the intelligent and powerful spirit whom Redfeather had traded words with just a few hours prior. With the spark gone, Angelo’s body had succumbed to its natural aging process. The young wraith looked rattled, occasionally casting a sad glance at Angelo’s body. Finnious had managed to keep his body solid enough to keep from falling out of the Hummer, but his color was still faint. In the center of his ghostly form a tiny spark burned.
The others were confused about what had transpired between the High Brother and the wraith, but only Redfeather had an idea of what the exchange had been about. The wraith being in possession of the Core didn’t bode well for the current situation or the Order of Sanctuary.
“I hate the rain,” De Mona said, staring out the window absently.
Jackson shrugged. “Could be worse; we could all be dead.”
“True.” She smiled. “That reminds me: we never got a chance to thank you guys for saving us. How’d you even know what was going down?”
“Because we’ve been following you,” Morgan said from behind the wheel. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the look of distrust in De Mona’s eyes, so he clarified. “We’ve been keeping tabs on the shithead uprisings in the city over the last week or so, trying to figure out what they were up to. The ones you slew near the college led us to you.”
“At first we didn’t know which side you were on, which is why we didn’t butt in until the attack at the brownstone,” Jackson added. “What did those things want with you?” De Mona wouldn’t meet his gaze. Jackson leaned forward so that she could see the seriousness in his eyes. “Don’t clam up on me now, sis; we almost got our asses tore out in there, so I think it’s only fair that you tell us why?”
“They were looking for my grandson and the vile thing that is trying to gain a hold over his soul, the Nimrod,” Redfeather said heatedly.
This got Morgan’s attention. “I always thought that was just a myth?” Morgan said over his shoulder.